


Long Walk + Recovery + Alone

by EWM



Series: Comfortember (myfirstone!!) [29]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016) Whump, Gen, Hurt Angus Macgyver (Macgyver 2016), Hurt/Comfort, Mac learning to walk again, Mac succeeding on his own, Poor Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Recovery, References to Torture, just an excuse for some whump, learning to walk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:42:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27865562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EWM/pseuds/EWM
Summary: Mac has a painful but necessary triumph all on his ownI had this idea for COMFORTEMBER - RECOVERY,  but didn't get a chance to write up
Series: Comfortember (myfirstone!!) [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1996306
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24
Collections: Comfortember 2020





	Long Walk + Recovery + Alone

Mac sat there in a wheelchair, his hands on his knees, the two long steel horizontal metal bars seemed insurmountable, the distance seemed horribly long and what if he crashed to the floor and made his legs worse? His eyes flitted down to his legs. He was wearing shorts and despite all the doctor’s advice about keeping his legs warm, he preferred them. It was just…he somehow needed to remind himself that they were still there. Mac was aware that this wasn’t very rational, but it was what his mind had immediately leapt too. Some sadistic part of his mind liked looking at the scars that now covered his legs, it was a strange kind of fuck you to those who had spent so long tormenting him, they had sliced them open, broken bones and covered them with bruises and burned them. But despite all that agony Mac was still there, he was alive and he…was well he wasn’t standing yet, but he would be.

He wheeled the chair a little bit closer to the metal bars, no point making this harder than it was already going to be. No one was there to watch him, for that he was grateful, it was late in the evening and the therapy centre was supposed to be closed. Less than an hour ago, it had been closed and locked, but locked doors had never really been a problem for MacGyver. He wanted the peace to try this and potentially succeed or fail on his own without what felt like thousands of eyes staring at him filled with pity.

Mac focused his eyes and his mind back to the present and the task at hand. He put his hands on the metal bars and heaved himself up, straining and sweating as he did so. He wobbled even just standing in the wheelchair and then his legs gave out. He landed back on the wheelchair; smack and he wrenched one of his ankles. He sat there for a few minutes breathing hard. He realised his hands were shaking slightly from the effort. After he had collected himself, he put left foot on the floor and then put his right foot on the floor, using his hands to lift his legs up and plant his feet firmly on the ground, he shuffled forward a little on the wheelchair. Then he put his hands onto the bars and heave himself upwards, pain shot up through his legs, he sucked in his breath determined to stay up right. As he stood there, the wheelchair slowly rolled backwards away from him, too far away from him really.

He shuffled his first foot forward only a few centimetres, biting his cheeks in an effort to ignore the pain going through his bottom half. Then he moved his other foot forward, inch by agonising inch he started to make his way along the bars. At one point he was convinced his legs were going to just stop functioning all together, but he determinedly held on and waited when he got too tired. His hands and arms started to ache in earnest then, he started to shake, his top half straining under the weight of supporting the rest of him.

But Mac had decided he would not give up, this body, even in the state it was in was his own and he would make it work again. He would…even if it killed him. Okay maybe not that far, but he was tired of being in the wheelchair, he was tired of the pity and the sad eyes. He wanted…to be free all of it and he wanted some semblances of his old life back. As he moved forward, his hands sliding a little from sweating; a nasty memory came back into his brain. He was not in the therapy centre, instead he was in a cave somewhere, flat on his back, his legs were a mess of blood and bone in front of him. The memory of dragging himself into a corner, the feeling dirt moving across his skin, rubbing into cuts on his legs, falling on his face and into his mouth making him cough. It made him shudder. Those memories were still far too close.

Mac continued all the same, his inherent stubbornness coupled with a bit of adrenaline keeping him going. He focused on other things, he started reciting the quadratic equation over and over again in his head x equals minus plus or minus the square root of b squared minus four a c all over two a. It was one of the most basic bits of math he’d learned in high school and the singsong style always stuck in his brain and gave him a strange kind of comfort. hen he turned his eyes onto the mat he’d been walking on, he squeezed his toes a little as he tried to walk, he liked the feeling of the mat under his feet, it was firm and flat. A variety of random thoughts span around in Mac’s head as he went along.

The walk along the bars took him twenty minutes, but he did get to the end of the metal rows. He grinned when he made it, he’d made it! All on his own! Without any support, any guide, nobody! Unfortunately at this stage Mac’s legs decided they’d had had enough hard work and buckled underneath him, he fell onto the mat. The crash echoed in the empty room. Mac was sweating and horribly sore, his hands were red and throbbing and his legs hurt like hell. He was also a little unsure of how he was going to get back into the wheelchair and get out of here. But he kept smiling, he lent back against the metal bars taking a few deep breaths. It was a first step or first steps to be more accurate. But he had done it.

**Author's Note:**

> Just as a note, people who have learned to walk again after accidents etc. I hope the scene was believable, I did my best to make it as realistic as possible and not over sensationalise it. If I made errors, I apologise I made it all up


End file.
